Monday, December 10, 2007

Today Google Earth Evangelist gave me an unusual gift. For those of you who are as ignorant as I apparently am, it's a pomegranate. Despite a love for food shopping, I rarely venture into grocery stores, which may or may not contribute to my ignorance. I am, however, very familiar with the seeds once they've been deposited in a salad or on my favorite ravioli dish, so I am very excited about the prospect of cutting open this fruit. This one is about the size of a very large apple.

I am looking forwarded to the adventure that awaits when I attempt to cut it open and squirt glorious red pomegranate juice over the white walls of my kitchen, my kitchen cabinets, the living room carpet and possibly the ceiling. I'm not sure exactly what range I can expect from the fruit, but I have been told that I need to wear black.

6 comments:

The pomegranate is certainly the fad food of our times. I recently saw "Pomegranate 7-UP", a two-liter of which was selling for 99 cents, leading me to believe the natural flavors representing pomegranate probably contained no more than 0.00001% pomegranate. I've never actually eaten raw pomegranate much less seen one in a grocery story.

Cut it in half, then peel into a colander while under running water. That really cuts down on the mess - sometimes to zero. Sadly, I bought one shortly before Naomi was born, and due to the difficulty in preparation, never got to eating it.

Alton Brown's pomegranate episode last year also advised breaking the arils (technical name for the seed pods) apart under running water. you dont want to squash them, just remove them intact from the husk.

when i was a kid they would arrive at the greengrocer in late October/November for about a month. we called them Chinese apples, and basically bit into them like regular apples, then chewed it up into a pulpy mess and spit it out like tobacco. the most fun food i can remember from my childhood, excepting the bubble gum that came in a 6 piece log .

Because Durham is having a severe water shortage, running water makes me uncomfortable. However, opening the pomegranate submerged in a bowl of water does mean less red juice splattering all over. The white part (that you don't eat) floats, so you can push that out, then strain the juicy seeds out of the water. I've opened pomegranates this way and it is actually pretty easy and not as messy. However, to me, this detracts from the entire experience; part of the fun of having a pomegranate is having it leave evidence in unexpected places. Somehow, submerging the pomegranate seems to be cheating to me (but is probably the wiser course).